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Inspiring Short Film Highlights Film Preservation | Film News

The British Film institute has aligned with creative content company Mill+ for the short Film is Fragile, in an attempt to highlight what we stand to lose if the National Archive is not preserved. The film, directed by Carl Addy, features a host of iconic movie scenes as the celluloid they are contained within begins to break down. Characters attempt to run and hide, but the message is clear; decay is inevitable, and if we do not take care of our film history, it will not be their for further generations.

The National Archive was founded in 1935, and contains films from as early as 1895. It collects, restores and preserves films from around the world, sharing them with the public through free services such as nationwide Mediatheques and Youtube. The BFI is a donation based institute and relies on contributions to fulfil its important role; film restoration is expensive, and even with millions of analogue features translated into a digital format, there is still a lot of work to do.

Mill+ have created content for ad-campaigns from Jaguar, Reebok and Prada, and have directed music videos for Prodigy and Portishead. Speaking to AdFreak, Addy stated “The concept for this film isn’t simply about the preservation of the physical celluloid. More importantly it is about the protection and sanctity of the soul of film, which is storytelling”.

Read more about the Film is Fragile campaign or donate towards the project on the BFI website. Check out the short below, which features footage from A Hard Day’s Night, 28 Days Later, Skyfall and many more: